Cedar Teeth: 'Echoes Grounding' [Song Premiere]

Vortex Music Magazine

As the familial five-piece ready their most cohesive release yet, you can get a first listen to their foot-stomping roots rock now. Out June 9, Cedar Teeth will celebrate at Mississippi Studios that eve with psych pop legends King Black Acid. Leave a comment below to win tickets!

Cedar Teeth: Photo by David GreenwaldCedar Teeth have been hanging around the fringes of Portland’s music scene for a few years now. In fact, the five-piece have always been just a little on the outside of the city. Hailing from the Molalla and Colton areas, they’ve been watching Portland from out in the sticks while also actively participating, regularly gigging at The Secret Society, Alberta Street Pub, LaurelThirst, Doug Fir and other regional brewpubs, cafes and McMenamins’ locations.

The five are like family. Dylan Martell (vocals, acoustic guitar), Rayson Gordon (bass), Luke Precourt (electric guitar, keys), Adam Murray (drums, vocals), and Erin Corzine (keys, banjo, percussion, vocals) have known each other for 15 years (“at least, if not more,” Corzine says).

“We love making music in the Pacific Northwest, amongst so many friends and artists we respect,” Corzine shares. “It seems [to be] a special time to be here, now. Hailing from the Cascade foothills outside of Portland, we've enjoyed a particular vantage point, a bit outside of the local scene, while still finding support for our music in the city. This has meant a lot to us, as we've been able to travel and perform throughout the Northwest and develop a broadly regional perspective. Portland is our musical reference point, but always informed by the overall experience of touring throughout the Pacific Northwest, through the cities and towns and countryside, from the coast to the open expanses of eastern Oregon and Washington. There are so many scenes, so many artists creating their own unique visions, but, for us, it seems we all somehow hang together, out here at the edge of the West. We're simply excited to continue building these relationships, discovering new places and new friends along the way, and sharing our particular voices with communities outside our region!”

'Farewell To Green Mountain' will be self-released on June 9And they’re ready to share something new: The group have been hard at work on a self-released EP, Farewell To Green Mountain, which is even named for the house where their community would gather—a home that was hand-built by Gordon’s grandfather and became a pillar of their community for many years. Due out June 9, Cedar Teeth will also have the opportunity to mingle with disparate Portland music makers when they share the Mississippi Studios stage that same evening with the anthemic, psychedelic pop of King Black Acid (“a band which has been so fundamental to our local music scene and culture, creating music that remains vibrant and formative across recent generations,” Corzine says) and the spacey shoegaze of rockers Daydream Machine.

Much of Farewell To Green Mountain was tracked at Jackpot! Recording Studio with producer Larry Crane in spring 2016. “Like most of the songs on Farewell To Green Mountain, ‘Echoes Grounding’ was a quite new song when the we walked into the studio,” frontman Dylan Martell says. “But it came together so fast, evolving into its current form with incredible joy and ease.”

“At its core, ‘Echoes Grounding’ is a recasting of the myth Echo and Narcissus from Ovid's Metamorphoses, told from alternating first-person accounts as each verse presents different sides of an argument between Narcissus and Echo collectively. The dual lead vocals lend themselves to this dynamic, as Echo and Narcissus address one another, but stubbornly hold to competing world views and, perhaps, miss the other's perspective until it's too late. The chorus of the song hangs on the refrain: ‘I’ll give you the rest of me, no not the best of me; you want a part of me, that's just the start of me.’ For us, it has become a bit of a mantra, as we seek to preserve the essence of who we are, while striving for connection.”

Connect with both Cedar Teeth and King Black Acid on Friday, June 9 at Mississippi Studios when both celebrate new records. Until then, hear the EP track "Echoes Grounding" below as well as watch the video for "Winter." Wanna win a pair of tix? Leave a comment below!